A court handed a 30-year prison sentence on Friday to the former chief minister of Tanintharyi region, more than a year after she was arrested on bribery and corruption charges.
Lei Lei Maw sold her house to the Global Grand Services (GGS) company for 200m kyat, well above its market value, and gave the firm several public contracts in return, the Anti-Corruption Commission said.
She also gave the F-22 Sunny Construction company 400m kyat, roughly $263,000, just to remove some bushes outside of Dawei airport. She did so without calling a tender or holding a cabinet meeting.
The Tanintharyi Region Court also sentenced three former GGS company officials to between five and ten years in prison on Friday. They are managing director Thein Htwe, company director Aung Myat and manager Thura Ohn.
Lei Lei Maw was hit with four charges under section 55 of the Anti-Corruption Law in March last year after a one-month probe into her conduct.
They also found that she abused her power by allocating almost two billion kyat in public money to the Road Management Department without following official procedures.
In return she had the department build a wall around land owned by her husband. She only paid for the work out of her own pocket after the commission began investigating her.
In December 2016, GGS signed a contract with the regional government to supply electricity to Dawei region. But Lei Lei Maw signed the contract before the regional government had even met to discuss the matter, the commission found.
The court gave her two ten-year sentences to be served concurrently for the GGS offences, and another 20 years for the two offences that did not involve the company.
